


Afternoon Conversations with Hamlet

by fencer_x



Category: No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer_x/pseuds/fencer_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shion finds ways to pass the time while Nezumi is out working.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Side: Shion

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before I realized that, duh, Hamlet and the others are actually real rats. Your forgiveness is appreciated m(__)m

Shion understands. He may not like it, and it may mean he's stuck inside their tiny apartment with nothing but the library and rats to keep him company, but he understands Nezumi's paranoia that one wrong step and he'll find himself in trouble, and two wrong steps and it'll be trouble from which Nezumi can't save him.

So Shion no longer asks to go with Nezumi when he pulls on his coat and scarf with clear intent to leave Shion behind radiating off his imposing figure. Instead, he reminds Nezumi to send word if he'll be later than usual and rattles off the meal he's thinking of preparing to be sure it's something that suits Nezumi's tastes. It always is, for he's learned by now how best to spice and season stock with the meager ingredients at his disposal--though he does suspect Nezumi's humoring him a bit, and Shion could probably offer to roast one of Inukashi's strays on a stick and he would rub his stomach and say he couldn't wait.

The apartment is always quieter, darker, without Nezumi. Not because Nezumi is loud or prone to outbursts or making a racket--quite the contrary, it's usually Shion who breaks any silence, and Nezumi more often than not seems put out by it. It's just…something's missing when he's gone and it's just Shion and the books and the rats until he returns from whatever mission he's been tasked with or rehearsals he's preparing for. His absence is almost tangible--he's not on the bed, not at the piano, not whirling Shion around trying to teach him dance steps that no one's put foot to floor for in hundreds of years probably. It seems ridiculous that a single person's breath could warm a whole room, or that his heartbeat could make a silence more bearable, but this is the truth that Shion now lives.

He feels like someone's wife almost, sitting at home waiting patiently with a clean house and dinner on the stove, and because he has no one to discuss his peculiar situation with, he makes conversation with the rats. Hamlet's the best listener of the three that tend to hang around the apartment most; he sits on his shoulder with his little claws digging into Shion's shirt, and it tickles a bit but doesn't hurt, so he indulges the little robot. It's easy to talk to them, mostly because he suspects they've been imbued with at least a mild form of AI, proficient enough to give them instincts and minds of their own to react to stimuli they might come in contact with on their missions into No. 6. And when Hamlet cocks his little head at something Shion says, it almost feels like he can really understand.

Cravat spends most of the day curled up on the charging station, and Tsukiyo is forever darting in and out of the apartment through a hole in the wall behind one of the bookshelves, quiet as the moonlit night he represents. But if Shion calls out to them, they come scampering, and he finds a certain calming respite in stroking their fiber fur and rubbing their heads, wondering what part of their programming makes them squint their little black eyes and curl into little balls of fluff while he scratches between their ears.

His conversations with the rats are not so much conversations as Shion voicing his thoughts aloud. It feels good to speak--best when speaking with Nezumi, if he's honest, not because Nezumi's a good listener but because it's a time when he feels like they can really communicate on the same level. Even if Nezumi is calling him an idiot or complaining about a street whelp trying to pickpocket him on the way home, he's still talking, gabbing, and Shion's there to listen, each word from his lips something new and special, filling up their four years apart with a steadily coalescing image of Nezumi and the life he leads.

But he can't converse with Nezumi during the day, so he trades his human rat for robotic ones and tells Hamlet (and occasionally Cravat when he's not napping and Tsukiyo when he hasn't scampered off on a mission) all about himself. He talks about his twelfth birthday, about meeting Nezumi--about the embarrassing, poetic things he thought the first time he saw the boy standing in front of his open window. He talks about Safu, about Safu's grandmother--and because Hamlet is a robot first of all and a rat after that and is therefore not going to tell anyone else, he confesses that even after two years, even if he somehow is allowed to return to No. 6 or if Safu comes to visit him out here with Nezumi, he doesn't know if he'll have grown enough to be a man that can make her happy, a man that can fall in love with her.

He thinks of being eighteen years old, taller than now but still not quite Nezumi's respectable build, and kissing Safu, and even in his mind it's all wrong and harrowing in a way that intimacy shouldn't be. He doubts Safu would treat him with the same attitude, he reminds Hamlet, and to embrace her with such uncertain feelings would only hurt her in the end. Hamlet seems to understand somehow and starts washing himself.

He talks about his mother, about what a hard worker she is, about her shop and the delicious treats she makes. He mentions how the neighbors in Lost Town are much warmer and friendlier than in Chronos, and how in an odd way, he's glad to have taken Nezumi in that night, glad to have stood up for what he thought was right even if it meant having his privileges stripped away--because in the end, it worked out for the best. And he honestly can't imagine a life where he turned on Nezumi, called the authorities and watched him be carted away--Nezumi is worth so much more than that, worth so much more to _Shion_ than that.

Sometimes he talks about Nezumi himself, too. It's a bit embarrassing, for reasons he can't quite explain--perhaps he feels like he's being nosy; Nezumi constantly complains about that aspect to his personality. But he can find no harm in talking to the rats about their master, and it makes the time pass faster when his monologues turn to his friend.

The topics shift day by day; sometimes he's irked with Nezumi about something and only wants a sympathetic ear to listen to his side of the story. Other times he asks the rats all the questions he wants to ask Nezumi himself--trivial things, like his favorite color or what subject he was best at in school (had he ever gone to anything resembling school?). He doesn't need to know the big things, the dark secrets Nezumi tells him he's better off not knowing--but he regrets missing all the little details that shape a person in your mind. He worries that if he doesn't learn these things--why Nezumi decided to grow his hair out, what's his favorite stage role--then one day Nezumi won't be there to tell them to him anymore, and Shion will be left feeling like maybe he never knew him in the first place.

And sometimes, when he's feeling good and there's a spring in his step because Nezumi's complimented his breakfast that morning--sometimes he talks about Nezumi in a different fashion. He'll explain to Hamlet the different smiles Nezumi has--his cool, cocky smile he wears in the marketplace when someone tries to game him, the utterly relaxed, stuffed smile of satisfaction after he's finished his third bowl of stew, and the soft, almost sad smile he wears when he threads his fingers through Shion's hair after he steps out of the bath, like he hasn't seen him in ages and is _so happy_ he's there waiting for him. That one's his favorite, he confesses, because he feels for just an instant like Nezumi sees him as an equal, someone he appreciates and cares for beyond a favor returned, and not like someone he has to keep looking over his shoulder to be sure he hasn't tripped over himself.

Hamlet's movements start to get sluggish as the day wears on--listening (or well, processing) is hard work, it seems--and Shion passes the afternoon waiting for the familiar stomp of boots on the stairwell outside watching Hamlet sleep beside Cravat on the charging mat. Here, like a parent to their child at bedtime, he talks about the things he wants to do with Nezumi, some day, far in the future.

He talks about how he wants to formally introduce Nezumi to his mother one day. He hopes she isn't angry with him, that she doesn't blame him for turning Shion off of the straight and narrow path through the Special Course and on into the upper echelons of society he was supposed to occupy. He hopes she instead hugs him and kisses his cheek like Shion always used to dislike but now misses fiercely. He wants to sit out on the terrace in front of the bakery sipping rosemary tea while Nezumi brings a cup of black coffee to his lips with one hand, placing his other on top of Shion's free hand and lightly tracing the thin bones beneath the skin, making Shion tell him the names of each and every one.

And sometimes when he's tired because he's cleaned the apartment from stem to stern and done three loads of laundry, carrying baskets of clothes up to hang out to dry on the roof, and been on his feet all day, he collapses on the bed that now smells of Nezumi and some new, foreign scent that he eventually realizes must be himself and whispers to Hamlet that he wishes Nezumi would come home some day and hang up his coat and scarf by the door, check on dinner--to be sure Shion has seasoned it properly, even though he always does now--and pull him into a waltz or what he calls a 'tango', but then perhaps something changes, and Nezumi misses a beat or the candle light catches in Shion's hair just right, and then they're kissing and Nezumi's using his tongue just like he did on the prostitute that one time, and now Shion knows why she was blushing because it feels like--

A sensor in Hamlet beeps--he's done charging--and he scampers off, very obviously not interested in Shion's embarrassing fantasies. Shion watches him squeeze through a hole in the wall he shouldn't have been able to fit through and catches himself in the mirror, bringing a hand to his cheek and finding it flushed. He really needs to find a hobby--talking to the robots isn't doing him much good.

He slaps himself sharply to bring back his senses and shakes his head, padding into the kitchen area to check on the stew. He stirs it a few times and starts to add another dash of salt before reconsidering--if it reduces, Nezumi will complain, and he's due back soon--

The bolt on the door gives, and Nezumi stumbles inside, practically ripping his coat off himself and tossing his scarf into the air, without a care for where it lands. Shion brightens--Nezumi's home a bit early tonight. "Welcome home," he greets, never growing tired of the feel of those words on his lips.

Nezumi is frozen, statuesque in every sense in the middle of the living room, and he nearly knocks over a stack of books piled precariously near the door when he stalks over to Shion, grips him roughly by the shoulders, and forces their lips together. Shion gasps audibly at the movement, stiffening in Nezumi's grasp, and quickly finds Nezumi's tongue in his mouth, stroking and sucking, harsh and desperate against Shion's lips but with an underlying gentleness that makes Shion want to reciprocate despite the storm of confusion, want to tell him it's all right, whatever the problem is. Nezumi pulls back as abruptly as he moved in, leaving a last nip at the corner of Shion's mouth. "I'm sorry--I wasn't in a dancing mood. My feet are killing me."

Shion's mind is fuzzy, and he probably looks quite a sight just now. "…Wh--what?"

Nezumi leans in, pressing his face into Shion's neck and breathing in deep. It must be an awkward position, Shion thinks. "I like dark colors best--don't have a favorite. I'm good at most any subject that requires memorization." He laps at the crook of his neck, whispering into Shion's skin like this is the most secret of revelations. "I grew my hair out cause I find it easier to manage. I don't have a favorite role--but I like when you watch me."

Shion's heart lifts at the suddenly influx of information when Nezumi is usually so reluctant to share anything about himself, but his stomach quickly turns, sick, within himself, and he shoves Nezumi away at arm's length. "How did you--what I just…?"

Nezumi actually _blushes_ and has the good grace to look abashed, glancing away abruptly and pulling back, crossing his arms over his chest and coughing for good measure. "Well--the rats. They're two-way radios…"

"You…!" Shion starts, humiliation rising and flushing his cheeks, but Nezumi quickly works to calm his holding his hands out in defense.

"I didn't mean to--you just wouldn't shut up! And I have to keep the frequency open to listen in on--anyways, it just, I really didn't mean to." He's breathing hard and flushing as darkly as Shion by now, and after a moment's awkward silence, it sinks in how ridiculous this is.

"You should have said something," Shion remarks in a small voice, less angry and more embarrassed now. "Those were private thoughts."

"Nothing's private in the Western Block," Nezumi reminds him, but with far less edge to the comment than he would usually apply. "And--I didn't want to embarrass you."

Shion blinks. "…I'm not embarrassed." Which seems ridiculous, but it's true--he's angry and humiliated at feeling like he's been spied on, but he's not genuinely ashamed of the things he's told Hamlet and Cravat and Tsukiyo in their private moments together. He would tell them to Nezumi if Nezumi were around and were the sort of person that appreciated conversations like that--at least, most of the things.

"You're not?" Nezumi very much sounds like he thinks Shion's full of shit, and his raised eyebrow underscores this point. "Because they were pretty embarrassing things you were saying, I think."

"They weren't," Shion protests, stalking into the kitchen to spoon out some of the stew into shallow bowls. Nezumi is right on his heels, fingers twitching like he wants to grab Shion and spin him around into one of the fancy dips like Shion saw in a book on dancing Nezumi made him study the previous week.

"Then say them again." Nezumi's breath is hot on his ear, and Shion shivers, rolling his shoulder to push him away. "You sure do get up to some crazy shit when I leave you alone."

"It's just talking to myself--there's nothing wrong with that. It's like--what do you call it? Soliloquy."

Nezumi laughs loudly, pulling away from Shion and sinking onto the low couch, its springs squeaking in distress. "I'm sure your afternoon confessionals are right up there with _'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day_.'" Shion ladles two spoonfuls of stew into clean bowls and toddles into the living area, gingerly setting the bowls between them before turning on his heel to fetch spoons.

Nezumi reaches out and grabs his arms, holding him in place half-bent at the waist and with their noses almost touching, and Shion suddenly recalls cold iron at his back and Nezumi's lips on his own, dry and chapped from being outside but eager and desperate. It wasn't a greeting kiss, it wasn't a kiss between friends. He idly notes that he'll have something new to discuss with Hamlet now before remembering _oh_. "I can't really respond, especially if I'm off doing a run for someone," Nezumi starts, sounding for the first time completely unsure of himself, and it sends a shiver of superiority through Shion. "And it's probably weird if you talk to the rats but--if you want, you can talk to me. Whenever."

Shion understands what he's being offered, and is momentarily grateful for the thought before considering the position Nezumi will be putting himself in. "Won't that distract you, though?"

Nezumi shrugs and picks up the bowl nearest himself, bringing it to his lips to sip some of the broth. "You're a distraction either way."


	2. Side: Nezumi

It's an accident at first. Or rather, completely unintended. Nezumi has let himself be bullied into standing in for an hour to go through some blocking for an extended fight scene the director seems adamant on including in their next production, and even though Nezumi's character is supposed to be locked in a dungeon at this point in the show, he does serve as an understudy for several roles, and so the director feels that he really ought to familiarize himself with the steps.

It takes him a moment, a split second of confusion, to differentiate the soft voice laughing in his ear from the director vocally reaming an extra on the proper bladework sequence to execute a parry-riposte. He's learned over time to filter out the static that filters in over the tiny radio, since unless his rats are on a mission, any conversations their sensors may pick up are by and large irrelevant--children playing outside, the couple living next door quarreling, the old lady with dementia who wanders the hallways during the day babbling to herself. They're programmed to activate at human speech, but rarely is that speech of any consequence.

Except Shion's in his ear now, babbling like a brook in that quietly amused voice of his about how Nezumi's clothes are all moth-eaten and haven't been mended in years, it seems, and sewing clothes can't be all that different from sewing up people, can it?

Nezumi passes a finger lightly over the control tucked in his breast pocket, but something stills his hand, and he can't help but listen intently as Shion continues chatting up what Nezumi now assumes must be one of the rats--alpha, perhaps? Or gamma? What did Shion name the damn things? He can't remember.

Shion moves on to other topics--how he needs to get dinner started soon or Nezumi will complain again about having to wait five minutes for the broth to thicken, how the drain in the shower needs to be scrubbed out, clogging more quickly with two men using it now, how he wonders if they have real rats in the apartment too, because he's pretty sure he found some droppings when he was sweeping earlier--unless Nezumi designed Hamlet (ah, Hamlet! Right.) and the others to actually produce feces, which Shion finds strange but not out of the realm of possibility.

Nezumi earns a few shocked stares when he snorts inelegantly at the idea, and he quickly coughs to cover it.

By the end of the day, it's too late to confess to Shion he's been listening to the guy's conversations with their robot pets all day without embarrassing him--and while he typically wouldn't hesitate to trip up Shion and remind him he's, yet again, being too free with his words, there's something almost endearing in the image of Shion spending his afternoons prattling away with Nezumi listening on in contentment, able to let Shion's words wash over him in this manner with an acceptance he wouldn't feel comfortable allowing in person.

And it isn't as if Shion does nothing but talk about Nezumi all the time, either. Indeed, he seems to have no end of idle topics to chat about--and more often than not, it touches in some way upon his old life, leaving Nezumi with less of a warm sense of growing closer to Shion (that he knows he shouldn't enjoy) and more of a chill of guilt, having ripped someone so sweet and innocent away from all that he knew and loved. Naive he may be, but he's not like Nezumi--he's not built for life out here, and while Nezumi may have accepted the side of himself that wants to protect Shion from anything and everything dark and depraved, he does understand that ultimately this will require great sacrifice if he is to stay true to this wish.

Sometimes Shion talks about his mother--Karan, Nezumi recalls distantly. He talks about how she used to be young and beautiful, and now she is still beautiful but has more lines wrinkling her face, and her hands are calloused and dry from rolling and pounding dough all day, slicing loaves for dinner tables around Lost Town. He feels bad, he says--guilty that he can make a new life for himself here with Nezumi in the Western Block while she must carry on with her head held high, acting as if she isn't worried for Shion or doesn't miss him terribly. Shion wishes he could see her--more than anyone else. He thinks it hurts being apart from her the way it might hurt if he were separated from Nezumi, and it's here that Nezumi nearly misses a stair and almost twists his ankle tripping down a flight of steps. Listening to Shion is hazardous to his health.

And sometimes, Shion touches on a person Nezumi is both fascinated by and wary of beyond all others: the girl called Safu. Mercilessly as he may tease Shion about her, all his prodding and barbs are a clever disguise for a nasty part of himself that feels threatened, irked and almost _jealous_ that Shion could still be worried about someone who only wants to use him for sex. He feels no small sense of superiority when Shion quietly confesses that he doesn't think he could ever have the kind of relationship with Safu that she wants with him. She never would have suited him anyways, Nezumi reasons.

Of course, these are the excuses he makes in his mind. He tells himself he doesn't care that their friendship has lasted several times longer than Nezumi and Shion have even known each other, or that Shion has all rights to be attracted to her (even if she does seem a little homely from what he's observed) and two years is a long time to come to terms with one's feelings for someone.

Instead, he closes his eyes and pretends to nap in a corner of the rehearsal hall during a scene he's not in and listens to Shion reading an excerpt from a collection of love sonnets and commenting that he's jealous of people being able to put their feelings into words so elegantly, and that he wishes he could do the same, but Nezumi would probably laugh at him. Nezumi stirs and takes the receiver out of his ear for the rest of the afternoon.

These conversations he can easily let flow in one ear and out the other, though, compared with the more serious questions Shion poses to the rats. It's easy enough to roll his eyes and snort when Shion's telling Hamlet or one of the others about how nervous he was when he went to be interviewed for the Park Attendant position and how his mother baked him meat pies as congratulations for being hired--how he wonders if he'll ever be able to taste her cooking again. But when Shion starts going on about things like _I hope I can introduce Nezumi to her one day, I'm sure she'd like him_ and _Do you think Nezumi can sing? He hums nicely--maybe he'd sing for my mom..._ , then it gets to be a bit much.

Worse still are the times when Shion doesn't even seem to realize what he's saying, or how it _sounds_. Making idle comments about how he thinks Nezumi's been missing meals during the day, because he's bonier than Shion remembers when they lie together at night, and maybe he should start making a little lunch for him to carry with him every morning. Or wondering how Nezumi got his scars and if he's ashamed of them, because he always wears a shirt to bed--and does that mean he thinks Shion's are shameful too? Even though he called them medals of honor?

Perhaps the most piercing of Shion's conversations that Nezumi manages to overhear, though, are the questions; the pondering of stupid, insignificant aspects of Nezumi's life that he's less kept from Shion and more never even considered divulging them--simply _because_ they are so inconsequential. Who cares what his favorite color is? He's never considered anything like that. And acting is just a job--performing in front of a house packed to bursting with every lowlife that could scrape together the funds for a ticket. If Shion knew what sorts of seedy joints Nezumi was spirited away to for _uchiage_ s, he wouldn't be so interested in Nezumi's job.

But Shion sounds so _so_ innocently curious--which is the worst part of it all. He doesn't realize anything, doesn't recognize the danger in front of his face. If ignorance is bliss, Shion is content beyond measure. Nezumi wishes that he would stop being so curious, so needy, so _Shion_ and just go back to missing his mother's cherry pie or wondering how he's going to face Safu in two years--Nezumi can handle him then. He can handle him _this way_ , too, but that's another problem altogether.

 _"Hey, Hamlet--do you think…"_ A pause. _"Nezumi's a good person, don't you think?"_ Nezumi hunkers down lower in his scarf, trying to hide his flush from anyone who might spot him and think him a target, and Shion laughs in his ear, light and amused at something Hamlet has done. _"Yeah, I like him a lot, too. He's probably my most important person, if I think about it."_ Nezumi doesn't even have to think about it himself; there's no question what Shion is to him.

 _"Oi--no, stop that. We have to wait for Nezumi. He'll be home soon. Geez you're energetic today… Was there a power surge or something I wonder?"_ Nezumi rolls his eyes, taking a sharp turn down a side-alley for a short-cut. _"It's still mind-boggling that Nezumi made you… He's amazing."_ Nezumi's pace picks up unconsciously. _"I probably shouldn't, since it's his job, and living here isn't free, and we have to have food and all, but--I still miss him. It's lonely here--oh, but! I definitely like talking to Hamlet and the others so, don't worry."_ He can practically _see_ the goofy little simpering smile on Shion's features as he strokes the rat's head.

 _"I wonder if he ever misses me… It's stupid to wonder that, right? He's Nezumi, and I'm just a freeloader. But still…"_ He can see the entrance to their block now. _"I hope I'm useful to him at least. That's enough for me. But then--you guys are way more useful than me, and stupid Nezumi couldn't even give you names. That's mean, isn't it?"_ Hamlet must have made some indication of assent, for Shion chuckles and agrees. _"Let's do our best to be whatever Nezumi needs."_

The steps groan under his weight as he scales them two at a time, breath coming in harsh pants by now as he noticeably steps up his pace, suddenly desperate to see the faces Shion's making right now, no longer satisfied with this disembodied voice in his ear. He practically jerks the door off its rusty hinges and steps in, yanking off the bulky clothing as quickly as possible.

"Welcome home," Shion calls from across the room, voice now smoother and clearer, with no static marring their connection. Nezumi freezes--there's an echo in his ear of the same words, but like a cheap, dull imitation--and he swallows hard before steeling himself and stepping forward to deliver his _I'm home._

Obviously if he wants Shion to shut up, he's going to have to do it himself.


End file.
